


The Golden Days are Over Now

by mariposa4



Series: there's so much worth fighting for (you'll see) [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Harry Potter is a Good Friend, Healing, M/M, Neville is a teacher too, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pureblood Society (Harry Potter), Teacher Harry Potter, They both like plants, the author adores comments and kudos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:34:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25578148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariposa4/pseuds/mariposa4
Summary: After the war, Harry travels the world.
Relationships: Neville Longbottom/Harry Potter
Series: there's so much worth fighting for (you'll see) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1842112
Comments: 13
Kudos: 61





	The Golden Days are Over Now

Sometimes, he still wakes up sweating. 

Here they are, the child soldiers, trying to find a life undefined by war. It’s harder than it looks. Harry doesn’t want to become an auror, fighting the same fight he sacrificed his life for. He can’t bear to go back to Hogwarts, reminded too much of long dead classmates, fake gallons, traveling in groups in the halls, a matter of life and death. The horcruxes were long gone, the war was over, and all Harry felt was loss. 

This was where Fred died. Where Colin Creevy took his last picture. Where countless others lost their lives defending the place they called home. 

It’s a first year’s wand, bloodstains on the ceiling, a little note that said _i'm still alive, they haven't broken me yet_ in the dungeon that got him. 

He didn’t want to grow up to be a war. _No more. Not again._

So Harry Potter, with all of his hyphenated titles, packed up his bags and left Britain for good. Ginny Weasley, little Ginny Weasley, told him frankly that she had been on this warpath since she was eleven. That’s where they disagreed and went their separate ways. Ginny, flying for the Holyhead Harpies, Harry, trying to find another home. 

He traveled to Croatia and swam in the salty Mediterranean. He saw the green hills, the harsh cliffs making way to sandy beaches. He traveled to the Amazon, climbed up the steep Andes mountains. He built a small rock wall to show that he was here, left his handprints among the bricks and fingerprints in mortar. He lost himself in the fog coating forests, and he marveled. 

The redwoods soaked up the fog from their trunks in order to survive. 

Inside a plant, there were millions upon millions of cells, each with their own organelles, and somewhere, within all of that, were the chloroplasts, which had tiny structures that looked like cookies stacked on top of each other. And in there, there were membranes, made of fat and protein, were the things that make plants green. 

In the grand scheme of things, Harry Potter was like an oxygen atom. People needed him, yes. But oxygen can do lots of things like make up acids and bases and drift around the world. 

We are all made of carbon, nothing special, and eventually we will add our carbon back into the earth. 

Wars would come and go, yes. There would be battles, but in the end, we would sink back into the earth. The same belt that broke someone’s back was also built to hold something up. 

Magic could kill. It could torture and cut and burn. 

But it also could create. 

And Harry too, would create. 

  
  


He went to college and got a teaching degree. He was a science teacher in elementary school. They were lucky to have him. 

He took time with the students and would try to show that even the most complicated problems could be broken down into manageable pieces. 

He was a better teacher than Snape ever was, than Quirrel, and all the other DADA teachers. 

Harry settled in a small house in a coastal town. Around him, the world was occupied with corruption and equal rights. Harry helped by showing a new generation of kids how to be kind. 

They no longer needed soldiers. Never again would they need to make children soldiers. 

  
  


Eventually, Neville found Harry, elbows deep in earth. 

“Wizarding Britain, it’s madness,” he paused. “I can see why you left.”

Harry opened his arms and helped Neville get a teaching degree. They grew closer, late nights spent marking papers and writing them. Neville was his oxygen, and Harry would stay thoroughly attached. And them, together, would feed the flames in their hearts. Neville graduated, a smile on his face, as Harry took photo after photo. He sent them to everyone he knew. 

They started teaching at the same school, and joy bloomed in Harry’s heart. He was making a life for himself, and it was exactly what he needed. 

A girl freshly graduated out of high school came to tell him how much his teaching made a difference in her life. She was majoring in chemistry. He cried. 

Here, doing something Harry enjoyed with his entire being, made more of a difference than he did as a figurehead. 

No one called him the Boy-Who-Lived or the Man-Who-Won. He was just Professor, plain and simple. Some of his kids just called him ‘Fessor. 

  
  


All of us are scratched or chipped or have a couple of pieces glued together. Neville and Harry were no exceptions. They both woke up from nightmares, their memories of a genocide far from over. 

But they were with each other, far away from blood quills and the cruciatus. 

  
  


On a November day, they got married. It was a small ceremony, but the best day of Harry’s life. Better than when he defeated Voldemort. Better than Christmas at the Burrow. Harry was where he belonged.

After Harry’s heart had broken from the war, Neville planted seeds in the cracks. 

They made love like a flame that melted the icicles left from the war still lodged in their hearts. Oxygen is one of the HOFBrINCl elements. It needs another to be stable. Harry had Neville at last. And what a pair they made.

  
  


Hermione contacted them, asking them to help. 

Harry sent back a reply saying he couldn’t do anything. 

“They just want me to come back and save them, even though they didn’t bother to help themselves in the first place. I don’t think I can fix it.”

Neville agreed. It wasn’t fair that an entire country’s dreams had been thrust onto a baby, the task of cleaning up the hatred and prejudice soaking into socks. Harry was in a different place. Different, but better. 

  
  


Let’s make the world again. Let’s hang our tears from Christmas lights. Let’s dive into the deep blue, try to find a starfish or an oyster. Let’s fly in the air and scatter all our hopes and dreams like the squirrels spread seeds. Our hearts are healed now. Our hearts are healed now.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :)


End file.
